The last of a long row planted
by the Highway Department as a warning:
Pedestrians: do not cross here.
It’s a six-lane highway with esplanade
placed to thwart head-on collisions –
no crosswalks, no street lights or overpasses.
Only those gentle green reminders
to people dashing from over here to over there
that people have been killed en route.
They resorted to a tall wire fence, leaving
the bushes to be trampled, car-crushed,
dying of thirst and traffic smog.
But at the far edge of the dead row
a yellowed, leaf-scarce survivor clings
to a thin patch of weedy grass.
I catch of glimpse of it while slowed
in a traffic snarl, and I smile to see
it’s blooming.
